--- title: Mandarin verbs never change for past or present, nouns usually don't… — Mandarin compared with English · tree and pragmatics description: Mandarin verbs never change for past or present, nouns usually don't change for plural, and questions often just add a little "ma" at the end; the work is done by small extra words and by the situation. Who acts: Mandarin verbs, nouns, questions, small extra words. A sentence of the lesson «Mandarin --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/34-mandarin-compared-with-english/2/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/) / [Mandarin compared with English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/34-mandarin-compared-with-english/) / 2 # Mandarin compared with English, sentence 2 Mandarin verbs never change for past or present, nouns usually don't change for plural, and questions often just add a little "ma" at the end; the work is done by small extra words and by the situation. **Who acts:** Mandarin verbs, nouns, questions, small extra words · **What happens:** not change, add, do · **To what, where:** little ma, end, work This is a sentence of the lesson «Mandarin compared with English» of the language course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Mandarin verbs, nouns, questions, small extra words), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:language:034-mandarin-compared-with-english.lesson:2 # text = Mandarin verbs never change for past or present, nouns usually don't change for plural, and questions often just add a little "ma" at the end; the work is done by small extra words and by the situation. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = language # lesson = 034-mandarin-compared-with-english.lesson # annotation = Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×2 1 Mandarin mandarin ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 2 amod _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=2:compound|HaikuPos=NOUN:NN:Number=Sing 2 verbs verb NOUN NNS Number=Plur 4 nsubj _ _ 3 never never ADV RB PronType=Neg 4 advmod _ _ 4 change change VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=0:root|HaikuPos=VERB:VB:Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin 5 for for ADP IN _ 6 case _ _ 6 past past ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 4 obl _ _ 7 or or CCONJ CC _ 8 cc _ _ 8 present present ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 6 conj _ _ 9 , , PUNCT , _ 14 punct _ _ 10 nouns noun NOUN NNS Number=Plur 14 nsubj _ _ 11 usually usually ADV RB _ 14 advmod _ _ 12 do do AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 14 aux _ _ 13 n't not PART RB Polarity=Neg 14 advmod _ _ 14 change change VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 4 conj _ _ 15 for for ADP IN _ 16 case _ _ 16 plural plural ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 14 obl _ _ 17 , , PUNCT , _ 22 punct _ _ 18 and and CCONJ CC _ 22 cc _ _ 19 questions question NOUN NNS Number=Plur 22 nsubj _ _ 20 often often ADV RB _ 22 advmod _ _ 21 just just ADV RB _ 22 advmod _ _ 22 add add VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 4 conj _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=4:conj|HaikuPos=VERB:VB:VerbForm=Inf 23 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 26 det _ _ 24 little little ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 26 amod _ _ 25 " " PUNCT `` _ 26 punct _ _ 26 ma ma NOUN NN Number=Sing 22 obj _ _ 27 " " PUNCT '' _ 26 punct _ _ 28 at at ADP IN _ 30 case _ _ 29 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 30 det _ _ 30 end end NOUN NN Number=Sing 22 obl _ _ 31 ; ; PUNCT , _ 35 punct _ _ 32 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 33 det _ _ 33 work work NOUN NN Number=Sing 35 nsubj _ _ 34 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 35 aux:pass _ _ 35 done do VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 4 parataxis _ _ 36 by by ADP IN _ 39 case _ _ 37 small small ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 39 amod _ _ 38 extra extra ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 39 amod _ _ 39 words word NOUN NNS Number=Plur 35 obl _ _ 40 and and CCONJ CC _ 43 cc _ _ 41 by by ADP IN _ 43 case _ _ 42 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 43 det _ _ 43 situation situation NOUN NN Number=Sing 35 conj _ _ 44 . . PUNCT . _ 4 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **not** **change** | present | Mandarin verbs | | | | | for past | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 2 | **not** **change** | present · do-support | nouns | | | | | for plural; usually *property* | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **add** *speech: assert* | present | questions | a little ma | | | at the end | often *property* | vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ma=Patient | | 4 | **do** | present · passive | small extra words | the work | | | | | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Eventuality | One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree. **Licence: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)**, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, `mova-school-agreed-en.conllu`) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence `school:language:034-mandarin-compared-with-english.lesson:2`. **The tree:** Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×2. **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence. See the [release 0.4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.4/). - ← previous: [Mandarin compared with English, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/34-mandarin-compared-with-english/1/) - next →: [Mandarin compared with English, 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/34-mandarin-compared-with-english/3/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/34-mandarin-compared-with-english/)